Needful Things Trivia Quiz

Answer: Stiletto

Wedges and stilettoes are both types of women's shoes, but only the wedge can also refer to a golf club. (The stiletto, on the other hand, could be a dagger, but this is less useful on a typical golf course.) Wedges are a type of iron, a versatile club with a relatively short shaft and a head with an angled, flat face; what makes a wedge different is its larger loft and its greater accuracy. A putter, on the other hand, has a small loft, which is useful when you just want to roll the ball a very short distance along the green. The set is completed by a couple of woods, useful for long-distance shots.

The point of all these clubs, of course, is to propel a small, dimpled golf ball along a manicured lawn so that it goes into a small cup marked by a flag. (That's one hole; a standard golf course has eighteen.) A golfer who lacks great accuracy had better make up for it with great patience!

Answer: Base

A base - usually a canvas sack - is part of the setup for a baseball diamond, but there's no need for bases in cricket. Cricketers do need a pair of wickets to mark the ends of the pitch. Each wicket consists of three long, parallel uprights, called stumps (appropriate, since they're usually wooden), topped by two horizontal bails.

The bowler's job is to get the ball to the wicket; the batsman's job is to put his or her bat in the way, blocking the ball and providing the opportunity to try for runs.

A bat, a ball, and a wicket are all essential for the standard game, though other pieces of equipment are useful too - particularly shinguards!

Answer: The baseball bat is rounder and narrower.

The business end of a cricket bat is a wide, wooden blade. The back face, pointing towards the batsman, has a ridge running down the vertical centerline; the front face, which strikes the ball, is flat. A handle is attached at the top. The overall look is quite different from that of a baseball bat, which is a single piece of wood (or, for amateurs, metal) in a round, barrel shape. The business end of the bat, where the batter hopes to connect with a pitched ball, is wider than the handle, but it's still much narrower than a cricket bat. At its widest, a baseball bat is not supposed to exceed 2.61 inches (6.63 cm) in diameter, whereas the blade of a cricket bat can be up to 4.25 inches (10.8 cm) wide. The two kinds of bat have similar length: 38 inches (96.5 cm) for a cricket bat, and 42 inches (107 cm) for a baseball bat.

In other words, Marcus can't simply borrow some bats from James and the other cricketers. He'll have to call another friend and hope he can bring a few!

Answer: Hoops or wickets

In croquet, a player hits a ball with a two-headed mallet in an effort to propel it underneath a small arch pressed into the grass. The arch may be called a hoop or (especially in the United States) a wicket, and need not actually be curved in shape; its top is usually somewhere a little above ankle height. In general, there's a particular order in which players should run their balls through the hoops (and perhaps around a stake or two), although the specific layout and rules depend on where you are and what variant you're playing. It's going to be tough to play any type of croquet without wickets, but perhaps Anita and Dave can at least get in some practice.

Bases or bags are used in baseball; nets are used in a variety of sports including volleyball and tennis; and tees are featured in golf and a children's baseball variant called t-ball.

Answer: LZR Racer

The LZR Racer is a full-body suit running from neck to ankles, leaving the arms bare. Made of synthetic materials, it employs a variety of techniques to reduce drag and help speed up swimmers. It's water-repellent; it replaces stitched seams with less bulky ultrasonic welds; and it even helps shape the body into a faster, more hydrodynamic posture. Wearers of the swimsuit broke more than 20 world records in the six months between the suit's launch and the Beijing Olympics. And at the Olympic swimming competition in Beijing, 94% of all races were won by people wearing the LZR.

Of course, all this success led to controversy. The high price tag on the LZR Racer suits put competitors from poorer countries at a disadvantage, and the breathtaking success of the suit made it seem that all those falling records were due more to technological advances than to old-fashioned toil and sweat. After much debate, the International Swimming Federation decided to ban body-length swimsuits in competition, starting in January 2010; they also banned zippers and other fastening devices, and required that the swimsuit be made of "a textile." José should keep practicing, and watch the rule changes, before investing in a suit like this.

Answer: A large sphere

The exact size of a basketball varies between men's and women's play. A men's regulation basketball is about 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter; a women's regulation basketball is slightly smaller, about 9.1 inches (23 cm). In both cases, an inflatable rubber ball is at the core, and is then surrounded in fiber and covered by a surface of leather (for indoor balls), rubber or some synthetic composite (for outdoor balls). The usual color scheme is a mostly orange ball with black ribs, but a good bounce is more important than good color saturation.

The name of the game comes from the baskets affixed to tall poles at either end of the court; players score points by throwing the ball into a basket, so that it falls through the metal ring at the top and then through the net that hangs down. A basket is worth anywhere from one to three points, depending on where the player was standing and whether it was a special play called a free throw.

Answer: An oblong shape with pointed ends

Four leather panels are stitched together lengthwise to make a football, which tapers to points at both ends of an approximately 11-inch (28-cm) length. An internal rubber bladder goes in between the last two panels to be stitched together, and then white lacing is added to give a convenient grip. The stamped texture on the leather also helps players get traction.

When the game starts up, Xiaodong and his friends will attempt to move the ball to the opposing team's end of a long field, via passing and running. They're playing touch football, which is much less risky than the tackle football that has become the most popular sport in the US: you don't have to bring an opposing player to the ground in order to stop them.

Answer: An oval frame with a grid of strings stretched across it

The strings of a tennis racket, which were traditionally made of catgut but are now usually nylon, are stretched across an oval frame. If they're strung at low tension, the racket gives the ball a bigger bounce, but a high-tension stringing allows more accurate aim. Either way, though, the network of strings on a tennis racket can never be described as hanging loosely from the frame - if that's true, it's long past time to re-string your racket!

A tennis player holds the racket from a single straight handle mounted from one of the narrow ends of the frame. Originally, frame and handle were both made of wood, but nearly all are now carbon-composite materials of one sort or another.

Rackets are also used in squash, badminton, and (unsurprisingly) racquetball, but their shapes and sizes differ from sport to sport.

Answer: A spherical rubber ball

A lacrosse ball is about 2.5 inches (64 mm) in diameter, and must be handled with a long lacrosse stick. The frame at the top of the stick forms a somewhat triangular shape, supporting a mesh pocket for catching and cradling the ball. Each team fields ten players at a time. Since these players are allowed to check each other with their sticks, protective gear - like Dante's kit - is an eminently sensible precaution.

Answer: Shinguards

Of all the 22 players on the soccer field (11 on each side), only the goalie for each team is allowed to touch the ball with her hands. The other players defend, attack, and otherwise move the ball by kicking it. Pads covering the lower legs are thus critical to avoid injury, either from a fast-moving ball or from the errant kicks of the other players. Usually these pads are covered by long socks, but no soccer player would forget to put them on a second time.

Helmets are typically permitted in the sport, and they may be particularly useful to players who frequently and strategically strike the ball with their heads. They are not, however, required, and it's uncommon to see them in professional or amateur play.